Touring North Korea

North Korea (DPRK), the ultimate authoritarian country, receives only about 1500 Western tourists across its borders annually. World travelers Elston and Jackie Hill take a private week-long tour and present their impressions of this isolated society.

The Hills ride around the countryside, always with their official guides, and photograph farmers gathering rice with sickles, and ox carts and human carts carrying large loads. Road maintenance, done primarily with hand tools, accommodates few cars as most of the population gets around on bicycle or on foot. The Hills visit government-sanctioned tourist attractions, historic sites, museums, and statue sites, of which there are over 500, of the Supreme Leader who remains president despite his death in 1994.

The Hills capture in image and story the faces of the people and their culture in this last vestige of the Socialist State.